Have all Communist/Socialist nations turned into. . .

Factual Questions
21

I lived in China until last month. They block Facebook and YouTube (and probably some porn sites), but VPNs are generally available to those who want to use them. South Korea blocks porn sites too, BTW, so let’s choose our definitions of “freedom” carefully. And I had far more free speech issues in Korea than I did in China. (Although that time I played a YouTube video of the Tienanman Square showdown in a bar and a bunch of locals used their phones to video it was a little scary…)

China has come a long way and deserves recognition for this.

22

There is no such thing as democracy.

What happen is in past the church, King and rich landowners controlled every thing , and had all power and say so of laws and how person should live a life. Than gone to system similar to libertarian system no minimum wage, child labor laws ,long on safe working condition, no right for education, medicine man and fake doctors you have cancer or illness take morphine.

This lead to FDA too many people getting sick by fake drugs and unsafe food and fraud drugs aka medicine man and fake doctors making wild claims.

The epidemic of massive of people with no work or roof over them and long lines lead to the FDR.

With communism, fascism and socialist system lead to liberal and conservative school of thought that wanted not to embrace radical change it is legal and morality okay for big government to say what can or cannot be done.

A conservative based morality on tradition and church school of thought. Well liberals base morality on majority vote and some times libertarian system school of thought on minority rights like skin color, age, sex ,mental problems ,homosexuality, country race.

And people should have right for education and healthcare. And some times people are kids and that the government needs to keep them safe or help them.

Well conservatives based morality on tradition and church school of thought and very concerned about ills of society that will undo or violate tradition and church school.

The conservatives believe in strong police force and police state to counter any ills of society that will undo or see that violate law of tradition and church school of thought.

If there was video game of porn causing people to buy sex toys and masturbating or smoking pot the conservatives will have field day!!

When comes to economics liberals see it as lacking order of lazy faire capitalism. If it too free it lead to monopoly, unemployment, the lucky and not so lucky the have and have nots.

Well conservatives when comes to economics too much order or control leads to bad economics.

Both conservatives and liberals are big government and totalitarian in old little way. And pick and choose.

Well communism, fascism and socialist are radical change.

All are big government. And none of them are democracy. And communism, fascism and socialist even more so. Too many places in world with communism state rights and collectivizes trumps individual rights.

Only a libertarian system or a colony system where small group of people living in colony can vote for different rules or laws and people are free to join or leave group.

A anarchy system is best but it lead to lack of order system with no laws ,police or court.

All pot smokers can set up own colony all the anti pot smokers can set up own colony. All the free health care groups set up own colony and all the anti- free health care groups set up own colony. All the pro gun groups can set up own colony and all the none gun groups can set up own colony.

Only this system be closer to true democracy.

23

You should never drink the bong water.

24

This is it. All we’re seeing is that these countries haven’t changed much.

25

And now WalMart shows us where capitalism and communism wrap around and meet: huge stores stuffed with sketchy goods.

26

Except, there’s nothing stopping you from buying higher-quality goods at a better store. In communist societies, every store has the same (poor) selection, unless you’re one of the party elite with access to the “secret” stores.

27

fair enough

28

Well, that’s not quite true. In many communities Wal-Mart has put the better stores out of business by deliberately undercutting their prices in order to create a local monopoly. It’s really not fair to compare their products and selection to the stuff you’d find in the average communist state outlet though.

29

[hijack]Which is weird when you think about it, because so much of their stuff is made by actual communists (Chinese). [/hijack]

30

I know it’s popular to take jabs at Walmart, but this being GQ and all, I’ll just say: Factually incorrect. If you think otherwise, please provide a cite showing the quality level of typical products sold at Walmart is similar to that sold in the former USSR. Plus, stores in the USSR, for example, were notorious for overstocking things no one wanted and quickly running out of things people did want.

31

Why is it not true? What, specifically, is stoping people from shopping elsewhere? Last I checked there were not border controls on “communities” in capitalist countries. Remember, this is GQ, not GD. What, specifically is stopping people from shopping elsewhere? Not to mention that anyone can pretty much buy anything they want online these days.

32

The problem is that the “common man” is a construct. If you define it as someone who wants to live securely from cradle to grave and wants nothing else, then communist regimes did this for a good many people. If you define it as someone who wants upper mobility and achievement… not so much. The US has gone rather the opposite route of making it possible for a few to become astronomically rich, supported by the suffering of a great many poor people. Society continues to be one big experiment of trying to find a balance between ensuring security and permitting achievement. Even if we got the formula exactly right, you can be sure that changing conditions will make past decisions seem like pure idiocy.

33

And, if an early grave was OK for large segments of the society when “experimental” programs didn’t work as planned. And, if you don’t care to be able to speak your mind against the government or be able to freely travel.

Actually, that’s more true of the communist system where high ranking members of the party got a huge share of state-controlled limited resources. It’s unclear that many of the super rich in the US got that way because a lot of poor people were suffering. Economics is not a zero sum game, at least in a capitalist economy.

Did people have to suffer in order for Bill Gates to get rich?

34

[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
For the record, I don’t consider China to be that totalitarian. They have some issues, but its hard to manage more than a billion people and there will be elements that conflict with freedom just as there are ones that doesn’t
[/QUOTE]

:confused: You can be arrested in China for posting rumors on there version of the internet, if those rumors criticize the party. They basically filter all internet access that is outside of China and they have whole departments to watch what people post inside. The people have to come up with ever shifting and seemingly innocuous phrases to even discuss issues in China without getting arrested (IF those criticisms reflect on the party…you can criticize local government and even people, even high level officials in some cases, as long as the criticism isn’t seen as a reflection on the party itself…of course, as this would be a judgement call and at the whim of party officials, you might get arrested anyway). You can be arrested in China for basically doing the equivalent of Tai Chi (Falun Gong) at the complete whim of the party…and this arrest is often not official (i.e. it never makes the official, highly suspect list of actual arrests China fesses up to, and so they don’t have to account for you in this case) and can result in a number of highly unpleasant things being done to you, up to and including execution and organ harvesting. And this isn’t even the tip of the Chinese ice berg. It’s hard to see how China is not a totalitarian state by any measure.
As to the OP, certainly all of the communist countries have turned into totalitarian states. There aren’t any exceptions to this. Some socialist states, using socialist social frameworks but not socialist economic systems aren’t, especially in western Europe, so I don’t think it’s really across the board. Of course, these things are not cut and dried but instead sort of a continuum…the US, after all, has socialist aspects, and while some might insist we were a totalitarian state on par with China, few take that sort of rhetoric seriously.

35

Having to travel to some other town or county does stop some people from shopping elsewhere. It may not be a legal bar, but it can be an effective one. And online shopping is hardly relevant since it didn’t exist when the USSR was around.

36

It’s an economic choice. That is not the same as saying they are “stopped”. It might be possible to find some person who is poor and handicapped who literally might not be able to get to another store, but it’s simply not true for the vast majority of people.

Eh. Catalog shopping existed. In a communist economy, there is no market, and so there is never a “better price” anywhere legal. That is the point.

37

You are assuming there is an “elsewhere.” If the competitor stores are out of business, you’re not going to be shopping there. (And yes, there is some research showing that a Wal-Mart opening causes other stores to close.

In large, densely-populated metropolitan areas where even Wal-Mart can’t secure a monopoly, this may not be as much of a problem as a smaller city or more isolated area. For example, there are swathes of the Midwest where Wal-Mart ends up being the only grocery store in the entire county; if you want to go “elsewhere,” that adds a chunk of time, and may not be feasible if you don’t have reliable transportation or plenty of money for gas.

No, not everything can be ordered online. Fresh groceries (meat, dairy, produce), e.g., aren’t readily available online outside some of the largest cities. If you need prescription antibiotics today, waiting until the mail-order pharmacy delivers next week isn’t so great, nor are most people content to wait for the delivery truck to get repair parts for their plumbing or other hardware needs. Personally, I hate ordering shoes online because of fit problems.

Nor can “anybody” order online. A quarter of Americans don’t have a credit card and twenty percent don’t have a debit card; while prepaid cards take up some of the slack, there are still a good chunk of people who are cash-only. You need a method to order: internet connections are ubiquitous in some neighborhoods, and virtually unknown in others. Also, you have to have a secure place to receive deliveries: it doesn’t do any good if your packages are stolen before you get home from work. (And lack of credit, lack of internet access, and lack of safe delivery location tend to go hand-in-hand, because they are all more common among those in poverty.)

38

By focusing on a few marginal areas, and certain economic choices people make, you are not proving a general rule. In the vast majority of cases, people can shop elsewhere if they make the economic choice to do so… Capitalism does not guarantee everyone a corner store. But it does give you an option to shop around if you have a mind to do so.

If you want to make a point, please tell us what percent of Americans have no choice but to shop at Walmart. Besides, Walmart is just one retailer (albeit a large one). It does not represent the totality of people’s shopping experience.

Your cite about other stores closing is from Chicago-- a place that happened to have other stores to begin with. Please don’t tell me that someone living in Chicago doesn’t have a choice but to shop at Walmart. Your second cite is conjecture, as noted by this:

Factually incorrect answers are still factually incorrect, even if they may be politically appealing.

39

Even in Chicago, the study noted that “Close in around the store’s location, between 35 and 60 percent of stores closed.”

If the store you wanted to shop at closed, you are SOL. If every pharmacy within your neighborhood closed, you have the option of buying at Wal-Mart’s pharmacy, going mail-order, or traveling (which isn’t an option for everyone).

Some of my relatives live in Springfield, Missouri. In the 1990s, they had Dillon’s, Ramey’s, Consumers Market, and Smitty’s as the big four grocery chains, all of which operated multiple locations across the city. Today, Ramey’s has evolved into Price Cutter (which are fairly small grocery stores), Consumers and Smittys have folded, and Dillons left town. Now the major full-line grocery stores are a single Hy-Vee and ten Wal-Marts.

Springfield isn’t some little podunk village; it’s the largest city in southwest Missouri, and the closest larger town is Kansas City, 165 miles away. Dillon’s wasn’t a podunk chain, either; they’re part of Kroger, one of the largest grocers in the U.S., but they pulled out of SW Missouri entirely, with the closest store now being probably the Dillon’s in Pittsburg, Kansas (80 miles). That’s a long way to go for groceries.

40

Quick quiz: which was higher: the Gini index in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union or in Lyndon Johnson’s America? (Let’s not even get into what happened to inequality in America after the mid-1970s).

The Scandinavian social democracies were somewhat less unequal than the Soviet Union in its heyday, but that’s somewhat comparing apples to oranges because the Soviet Union was dragged down by the poorer central Asian republics. The Belarussian SSR, which is more comparable in size to a Scandinavian country, had a lower Gini index than any capitalist European country then or now.

The Soviet Union was a very unequal place under Stalin, but since I’m not a Stalinist, nor are most people who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union nowadays, that’s somewhat beside the point. The second half of the Soviet Union didn’t have the mass graves, either. (Yes, they had restrictions on free speech and travel, clearly. I think life was still clearly better off for the poorest slice of Soviet society in the 1960s than for, say, American black people).